XBT Transects

XBT (eXpendable BathyThermographs)
transect AX20 runs from Spain to French Guyana. The provided data helps to document the ocean heat storage and global transport
of heat and fresh water, which is crucial to improving climate prediction models that are initialized with temperature profiles.
The seasonal to interannual variability in upper ocean heat content and transport is monitored to understand how
the ocean responds to changes in atmospheric and oceanic conditions and how the ocean response may feedback to the
important climate fluctuations such as the North Atlantic Oscillation.